HDMI cable is connected between Arcam SA30 and TV;
TV brand is Samsung, model UE46F6500;
TV and Arcam SA30 are switched off.
Scenario
Perform the following steps:
switch on Arcam SA30 version 1.21, build 521 is used
save the reference video to an USB stick
mount USB stick in TV, set TV input source to USB
play reference video from USB stick
press tools on TV remote, set receiver = off (music will be played through TV)
reference video is playing through TV speaker
press tools on TV remote, set receiver = on (music will be played through SA30)
reference video is playing through SA30
Actual result
the audio and video played through the TV speaker (in step 6) are in sync;
the audio and video played through the SA30 (in step 8) are not in sync, from the reference video it appears that the audio played through the SA30 is approximately 60 ms later compared to the video.
Expected result
The audio and video played through the SA30 (in step 8) are in sync.
Hi, I have the same issue, all digital is delayed considerably. My current workaround is to use the headphone output wired to CD input. This only works if CD input is put into analogue direct mode - if any ADC/DAC is involved there’s a delay of 100+ms to the TVs internal speakers. That’s quite a roundtrip latency!
This was flagged 20th of may, any chance ther is going to be a fix? Seriously considering to send the unit back.
The ticket is opened 10th May. Since that time I had several conversations with Arcam (not listed here). I was looking how to reveal the cause of the delay. It might be caused inside the TV or SA30. I couldn’t find any ‘proof’ it was related to SA30.
My current workaround is to use the headphone output wired to CD input. This only works if CD input is put into analogue direct mode - if any ADC/DAC is involved there’s a delay of 100+ms to the TVs internal speakers.
Thank you for posting, it is really helpful information. Just to double check. You do not have any delay if the following to conditions are met:
the headphone output of the TV is connected to the CD input of the SA30;
CD input is set to analogue direct mode
If only criteria 1 is met (and criteria 2 isn’t met) then there is also an delay? This could be the ‘smoking gun’. Please confirm.
absolutely - there is a delay if CD input is not analogue direct. Also, it does not seem to make matters worse wether there’s a Dirac curve applied in digital or not.
Only bypassing the digital circuitry removes it.
I have blamed it onto LG before, which have seen some terrible ARC/AV-Sync issues, but this also made me think it’s actually related to the roundtrip latency.
Thank you for getting in touch with support. Do you think I should open a ticket myself?
I think we found the culprit: our nice SA30
I cannot asses you statements but I think we have enough clues.
You do not have to open a ticket. I’ll add you information to it and ask if it the issue can be reassessed.
I understand, this is very annoying to me too. Until now it was a ‘cold case’. Thank you for finding new evidence (looks like a murder investigation )
You do not have to send it back, yet. I’ll keep you posted about the progress.
Great, thank you! Hoping there is going to be a fix for this soon. That whole HDMI-ARC thing was really why I bought it. I wanted it’s superior conversion.
I have more issues that I’ll post
The SA30 isn’t really a finished product - can’t really say I wanted to be part of beta testing. I do like sound and features, Dirac is fantastic but I am only covered with my dealer for 14 days, of which half have passed. Afterwards it will likely be my own problem if it doesn’t get sorted. Not sure what do do right now.
I can imagine that, I’ve been there too. I went for several listening sessions and at that time (December 2019) I had the feeling the supporting app had some quirks. Nowadays these quirks are gone because I started reporting them and Arcam fixed them. I’m confident annoying issues will get fixed. The most annoying bug was the volume jump icw the TV remote (not even listed here), since SA30 firmware build v512 this has been fixed. I’m very stuck on the SA30 superb sound, that’s the main reason I didn’t return it.
I got the same issue with all digital inputs on the SA30 (have not tested ARC though) form my pc. Only analog in direct mode is at the moment usable for videos.
I am already in touch with Arcam software engineer, but I got no answer on the sync issue yet.
I described the problem in detail and they are looking into it.
In short I get delay on optical and coaxial inputs, up to about one second. It gets worse the higher the outputted Hz range is (max 192.000 Hz over coaxial).
Analog ouput form my soundcard (only if analog direct) resolves the sync issue.
This renders the whole unit basically useless to me (no DAC, no Dirac, etc.).
I really hope they can fix this and there are no hardware limitations that make a software fix impossible. The unit itself sounds great and I like to keep it if possible.
Thanks for this additional information. It sounds to me this is another (related) issue. In order to keep things simple, could you please create a new issue and fill in the template fields? Creating single issue helps in a common understanding. Mixing issues is prone to communication errors. After you created the new issue, I’ll open a ticket for it. Thank you.
The latest Lip Sync feature doesn’t seem to make a difference. The audio is later compared to the video, the feature is able to delay further. Maybe the cause of out of sync is inside my TV.
Whilst this cannot be ruled out after all, we have established that the digital signal path does introduce a delay over analogue direct - and a big one! Ideally, round trip latency should be below 10ms and thus pretty much inaudible.
Lets hope that they are able to fix it. From my point of view this is the second most annoying bug which persists for a long time. The volume jump bug was the worst issue , fortunately this has been fixed now.
